


Just Spit It Out

by PorcupineGirl



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Based on a Tumblr Post, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 18:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12195519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PorcupineGirl/pseuds/PorcupineGirl
Summary: Jack can't believe he just heard the words on his soulmark from the mouth of the gorgeous new waiter at the diner he frequents. But now the pressure is on - what if he says the wrong thing back? Can you screw up meeting your soulmate?





	Just Spit It Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heresyourchecksir (irongirl4597)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/irongirl4597/gifts).



> Well, I was going to put this as a reply to the original Tumblr post, but Tumblr keeps fucking up the formatting and anyhow it got pretty long so I'm putting in here. This was banged out in an hour and only has had the most perfunctory of editing.
> 
> The original post by [heresyourchecksir](http://heresyourchecksir.tumblr.com/post/164776898675/ercbittl-heresyourchecksir-someone-has):
> 
> Someone has probably done this before, but in the classic Soulmate AU where you have your soulmate’s first words to you tattooed on your arm, Bitty works in a diner and has the words “Check, Please!” written on his arm, so when a cute, dark haired, blue eyed man comes in and says nothing until he asks for his check, Bitty, who hears this thousands of times a day, thinks nothing of it. Jack, on the other hand, never expected to hear the words “What can I get you, sweet thing?” from such a bright eyed, adorable man. Now if only he could work up the courage to talk to him.

As soon as the waiter says, “What can I get you, sweet thing?” Jack’s eyes snap up from his menu. He’d seen the gorgeous guy bustling around behind the counter of the diner, but never in a million years had he expected  _that guy_  to be  _his guy_. Suddenly he realizes - whatever he says, it has to be exactly the right thing. What if he fucks this up? What if he somehow manages to be the idiot who  _doesn’t_  say whatever his soulmate has written on him??

He looks to Shitty for help. Shitty clearly recognized the phrase, from the wide-eyed manic smile he’s giving Jack. Jack gives him a pleading look that he  _hopes_  will be interpreted as  _help me out, man, what do I say??_  

Shitty looks up at the waiter, who is still smiling patiently as though his customer weren’t having a stroke in front of him.

“I’ll have the French toast, and my sweet thing of a friend here will have the special, with the eggs over easy.”

“Coming right up!”

“Oh, hey—” Shitty catches the waiter’s attention again before he walks off. “What’s your name, by the way?”

The waiter’s eyes go wide, his hand fluttering to his cheek. “Oh, I am so sorry, where are my manners? It’s just been so busy this morning! I’m sorry, sir, I’m Eric, just let me know if you need anything else.”

“You new, Eric? It’s just, my friend Jack and I here have been eating breakfast at this fine establishment twice a week for a couple years now and I am sure he would have noticed if we’d seen you before.”

Eric blushes and glances at Jack, but his eyes skitter back to Shitty before Jack can think of anything to say.

“Oh, no, it’s just usually I work a split shift. I come in before the crack of dawn to get all the baking done, then I go on back to bed for a couple hours and come back for the lunch rush. So I really do apologize if I’m off my game a little today, I’ve been here since four thirty.”

“Holy shit,” Shitty says after letting out a low whistle. “Now wait, you do all the baking? That means you make all those fucking incredible pies they got here?”

He gives Jack what Jack thinks is supposed to be a significant look.

“Oh, well aren’t you sweet! Yep, those pies are my pride and joy. Well, I better get your order in if y’all ever want to get your food! You let me know if you need anything.”

Once Eric has walked away, Shitty leans over the table.

“Dude.  _Dude_. You gotta say  _something_  to him.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to say?” Jack hisses, gripping the edge of the table just this side of hard enough to hurt. “What if I say something that’s not on his mark? How am I supposed to know?”

“Jacky, Jack-o, Jackabelle. You know that’s not how this works. He didn’t know you have ‘What can I get you, sweet thing?’ on your thigh, he just said what he was gonna say. Whatever you say, it’ll be right, and then he’ll know and you two can get married and have stupidly attractive, pie-baking babies together.”

“But what if... what if all the people who never find their soulmate, they actually did, they just fucked it up by saying the wrong thing? What if I do that?”

Shitty just stares at him for a moment.

“Look, if you say something and it’s not what he’s got on his mark, then clearly he’s not it and eventually someone else will say ‘What can I get you, sweet thing?’ to you and everything will be  _fine_. Now, I believe I was going to tell you what that asshole in my  _Ethics in Criminal Justice_  class said yesterday...”

Once Shitty starts on a rant, Jack knows better than to interrupt, and he’s got quite a head of steam built up by the time their food arrives. Despite that, he cuts off abruptly as soon as he sees Eric approaching.

“Okay, one French toast plate and one special, over easy,” he says, smiling brightly as he lays their plates down. “Y’all need a refill on the coffee?”

“Yes, please,” Shitty says, then glares at Jack. Jack just stares as Eric fills their mugs. He’d have trouble talking to a man this gorgeous on a normal day, let alone when there’s this much riding on what he says first.

“Where are you from, Eric?” Shitty finally asks just before Eric turns to leave. “Clearly not around here.”

Jack is sure Eric must hate them for bothering him so much, but instead he seems more than happy to chat.

“It’s kinda obvious, isn’t it? I’m from Georgia originally, a little town called Madison about an hour from Atlanta. I moved up here for college.”

“Ah,” Shitty says, “so you’re a student?”

“Just graduated this past May, actually! Still trying to figure out what I wanna be when I grow up, but I like it here well enough for the moment. I get to bake, that’s all that really matters to me.”

“Nice. Where’d you go to school?” Shitty gives Jack a  _look_  again, but Jack is actually quite happy to let Shitty keep getting all this information out of Eric.

Eric blushes. “Samwell, actually.” Jack’s mouth falls open, and he sees Shitty’s eyes widen. He’s got to say  _something_. “And please don’t say I should be able to do better than waiting tables with a Samwell degree, like I said, I’m still figuring things out.”

“You’re shitting me!” Shitty says, and whacks Eric on the arm, almost making him slosh the coffee in the pot he’s still holding. “We graduated from Samwell two years ago! Small world!”

Eric squints at them. “Wait, were y’all on the hockey team? I used to go to some of the games.”

“Hell yes, we were!” Shitty says. “Jack here, French Canadian Adonis that he is, was the captain three years running. Good preparation for his NHL career, where he’s currently Alternate Captain of the Falconers. He’ll be paying, by the way, seeing as how he’s rolling in dough and I’m but a lowly law student.”

“Oh my goodness!” Eric says, smiling at Jack. “Well congrats, that’s wonderful! I played hockey in high school, but I couldn’t deal with the checking. I never followed the NHL much, but I’ll have to check out a Falconers game and look for you!”

He sounds so sincere, not just like a waiter doing his job by being friendly. Jack opens his mouth to say something—anything—”Thanks” or “I can get you tickets” or  _something—_

“Waiter!” A woman with a severe hair cut two tables away yells, waving her hand around. She glares at Eric when he turns to her. "We _need_ more _napkins_." 

Eric sighs. "Sorry, duty calls. And I should let y'all eat, anyhow."

"What the _frick_ was that, dude?" Shitty says, thankfully keeping his voice low and leaning across the table. "He went to Samwell, he likes hockey but recognized you from the Samwell team and not from… everything else, how have you not said anything yet?"

Jack shrugs. "I was about to! I swear! It's not my fault that lady can't walk five feet and get her own napkins from the stack on the counter. You didn't have to point out that I'm rich, by the way, I don't need _that_ to be his first impression of me."

"His first impression is that you're the world's first mute professional hockey captain," Shitty says, rolling his eyes as he takes a bite of his French toast.

"I'll say something," Jack resolves. "I swear, I'll say something to him before we leave the restaurant."

Shitty goes back to his rant as though he'd never been interrupted, and they eat their meal peacefully. Jack keeps watching Eric out of the corner of his eye, and he thinks he's not imagining that Eric keep sneaking looks at him, too.

When they're done with their food, suddenly slices of pie appear before them.

"On the house," Eric says with a wink. He smiles at Jack, nodding a little toward Shitty. "Your friend said you were Canadian, I thought you might like today's special."

Then he's gone before Jack can so much as say _thank you_ or _you have the most incredible eyes I've ever seen_.

"Okay, that time was not my fault," he says quickly. "He didn't give me any time to say anything."

Shitty raises an eyebrow. "I think you're just not trying hard enough."

Jack grumbles as he cuts off a bite of the cream pie. He's had the pie here before, he _knows_ how good it is, knows that Eric must be an incredibly talented baker who could probably open his own shop—but he's never had _this_ pie before.

A tiny bit a groan escapes before he can stop it, and when he glances around to see if anyone noticed, Eric is across the room behind the counter, wide-eyed and red-faced. As soon as Jack's eyes land on him, he ducks his head and dashes off into the kitchen.

"He made you a fucking _maple cream pie_ ," Shitty says around his mouthful. "Jack, you get your ass back into that kitchen and propose to that young man right now."

"He didn't make it for _me_ ," Jack grumbles. "He didn't know I was coming, or that I'm Canadian."

Shitty kicks him under the table, earning a glare. "Exactly! This is like fate times _ten_ , Jack! You can't fucking ignore this!"

"I'm not going to ignore it! Just—finish the pie and I'll think of something to say."

They eat the rest of the pie quietly, Jack managing not to make any more embarrassing noises. He waits until Eric is done taking another table's order, then puts his hand up to get his attention.

"Ah, check, please?" The words are out of his mouth without a thought.

"Sure thing," Eric says as he comes over to the table.

"I could get you tickets," Jack blurts out as Eric sets down the check. "To a Falconers game. If you wanted."

Surely that's distinctive enough? But although Eric smiles and looks flustered, he doesn't react like he's just found his soulmate.

"My goodness, that's so sweet, you don't have to do that!"

"I want to, though," Jack says, hoping he doesn't sound too desperate. 

But before Eric can reply, a man sticks his head through the kitchen door.

"Bitty, get your butt back here, there's some kind of emergency with the mixer! It's throwing flour everywhere!"

"Oh gosh!" Eric (Bitty?) says, hand over his mouth. "Sorry, I'm the only one who can get that damn thing to do what it's supposed to. I'll be right back, I swear!"

And he dashes off before Jack can say another word. He looks over at Shitty, who is staring at him, mouth hanging open, dumbfounded. As Jack watches, Shitty slowly bends his head down and bumps it on the table a few times.

"I said something, but he didn't react at all!" Jack says, knowing that his panic is creeping into his voice but unable to stop it. "Now he thinks I'm just some creepy customer hitting on him because he's paid to be friendly—"

" _Jack!_ " Shitty says harshly, picking his head up from the table. "Think hard, Jack, what was the first thing you said to him?"

"I could get you tickets?" Jack says. "That seems like it should have gotten _some_ kind of reaction—"

"No," Shitty interrupts. "That's not the first thing you said. The first thing you _said_ was fucking 'Check, please.' He's a fucking _waiter_ , Jack. People say that to him fifty times a day. If he has 'Check, please' written on his mark he's probably given up on ever figuring out who his soulmate is."

Jack blinks at Shitty for a moment.

"I told you I'd fuck it up."

Shitty runs a hand over his face, while Jack gets out his wallet and pulls out enough cash for the bill and a generous tip. He starts to get up, but Shitty reaches over and pulls him back down into his seat.

"What the fuck are you doing? We can't leave now!"

"He's busy, I screwed it up, maybe this just wasn't meant to be," Jack says.

"Like hell it wasn't meant to be," Shitty says, surprising Jack with his vehemence. "If his soulmark says 'check, please' then it was absolutely meant to be. The pie, Jack. Remember _the pie_. It's fate!"

"The pie had nothing to do with me," Jack grumbles into the dregs of his coffee. They sit there, glaring at each other until Eric comes back out.

He has a tray of food for another table, but then he comes over to them.

"Y'all… need anything else?" he asks, looking a little nervous.

"Eric, I'm just gonna put it all out there," Shitty says. "I know this is the rudest fucking thing, and I apologize, but bear with me here. What does your soulmark say?"

Jack gapes at Shitty. He's seen Shitty be overly blunt, he's seen him say crass and crude things in public, but he's _never_ heard him ask someone what their soulmark is. He and Jack only know each other's because, well, they've spent a lot of time naked together (Jack only in the locker room, Shitty not so much).

Eric, unsurprisingly, blushes at the intrusive question. "Oh, well my goodness, I'm not sure—"

"Let me put it another way," Shitty says, holding up a hand. "Does your soulmark say 'Check, please'?"

Eric's eyes go wide. He glances from Shitty to Jack, his shocked expression much more what Jack would expect from someone who just found their soulmate.

"…Yes?" he replies in a small voice.

"Swawesome," Shitty says with a smile. "Check Please, meet What Can I Get You, Sweet Thing. Who was too struck dumb by your good looks and natural charm to say anything more interesting."

"Oh," Eric says, his eyes never leaving Jack's. His face relaxes a bit, and a trace of his smile comes back. "Hi."

"Hi," Jack replies. He's still too lost in Eric's eyes to think of anything more interesting to say.

**Author's Note:**

> My [Tumblr.](http://porcupine-girl.tumblr.com) Thanks for reading!


End file.
